The election is over and the people have spoken. After months of highly-charged attacks, lively and lackluster debate performances, and never-ending punches and counterpunches, Barack Obama has prevailed as the winner of the 2012 election.

It won't be an easy job. Mr. Obama will need to enable the creation of millions of new jobs, embolden U.S energy, environmental, and national security, and lead our country into a robust economic future -- all while dealing with a sharply divided electorate.

Now that the election is over, what steps can the president and new Congress take to ensure our nation's ongoing clean-energy leadership?

Here are five actions for Mr. Obama that, if implemented, we believe would supercharge the U.S.'s clean-tech economy:

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a proposed plan that would require buildings with more than 25,000 square feet of space to be more energy efficient.

Stephane Bilodeau's insight:

Mr. de Blasio said that the owners of smaller buildings would be offered low-interest loans. But of larger landlords, he said, “They can handle it.” Buildings that do not meet the requirement would be subject to fines, based on the size of the building and the degree to which they exceeded the energy use thresholds. A 30,000-square-foot building that substantially exceeded the threshold could be fined $60,000, according to a news release from the mayor’s office. Of the 23,000 buildings that are larger than 25,000 square feet, officials said that 14,500 are “the worst performing” in terms of energy efficiency, according to the news release.

By using energy storage with solar panels, homeowners were able to go off-grid, showing how distributed power could speed future storm recovery.

Stephane Bilodeau's insight:

"Utilities are beginning to expand their renewable energy footprint: Florida Power & Light has announced plans for eight new solar plants across the state, and last month, Duke Energy canceled a nuclear project and said it will instead spend $6 billion building solar farms, installing electric vehicle charging stations, and improving the electric grid. There is also a grassroots movement growing: last year, voters passed an amendment that extends a tax break for residents who have installed solar or equipment for other renewable energy.(...) To stave off another power outage of this scale, some energy experts say storage is the most important consideration to address."

Officials from more than 30 nations that signed onto a 2015 landmark pact to fight climate change gathered in Montreal on Saturday, their first meeting since the United States last month gave formal notice it would pull out of the Paris agreement.

Stephane Bilodeau's insight:

Saturday’s gathering was organized by Canada, China and the European Union to open dialogue between major industrialized nations and developing countries and “enhance global momentum” for implementing the Paris agreement, said Miguel Arias Canete, European Commission commissioner for climate action and energy.

Renewable Energy Index shows sector will generate power to run 90% of homes once wind and solar projects being built in 2016-17 are completed

Stephane Bilodeau's insight:

Renewables, which made up just 7% of national electricity output a decade ago, accounted for 17.2% last financial year. This jumped to 18.8% last month.

This is saving the power sector from carbon pollution equivalent to taking more than half of all cars in Australia off the road, according to Green Energy Markets. The biggest single source of renewable power remained hydro-electricity (40%), followed by wind (31%) and rooftop solar (18%), the index found. Less than 2% came from large solar farms, suggesting the best is yet to come from this arm of the renewables industry which has an array of large-scale projects underway.

Green Energy Markets analyst Tristan Edis said the emergence of renewables, in particular wind and solar, as a “significant source of power” had ushered in a “construction jobs and investment boom”.

These days, as soon as winds hit 74 miles per hour or barometric pressure drops below 990 millibars, people want to know: Is climate change behind this hurricane? It’s an even more pressing question when a giant storm like Harvey is followed by an even more gigantic one like Irma, which itself is being followed by Jose and Katia. Climate scientists continue to wrestle with the connection between global warming and individual storms, but they’re more confident than ever that there’s some linkage.

Stephane Bilodeau's insight:

1. Is climate change to blame for Harvey and Irma?

Climate scientists are increasingly comfortable connecting global warming to the unprecedentedly high ocean temperatures that fuel some storms. Scientists in Germany and the U.K. drew a direct link between global warming and the intensity of Irma and the destructiveness of Harvey. Climate change can’t be blamed for the existence of these two juggernauts -- there have always been hurricanes, after all -- but it does shape the remarkable conditions they’re occurring in. The fuel for tropical storms is ocean heat, and each storm’s top winds have a theoretical speed limit, determined by how much of that fuel is in their tank.

2. How hot is the ocean?

Hotter than at any previous moment in recorded history, thanks to human-driven climate change. The global average sea-surface temperature for July was 1.24 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, making it the third-hottest July for oceans, behind 2016 and 2015. The waters where Irma was born were about 2 degrees Fahrenheit above normal or 1 degree Celsius.

Whilst climate change has disruptive and sometimes devastating consequences, confronting it has great potential for job creation. Good jobs. Decent jobs that provide livelihood, protection and dignity. The kinds of jobs that ensure sustainable and inclusive growth. The ILO calls these "green jobs."

We must learn to recognize these opportunities and design strategic environmental policies driven by a decent work agenda. There is an urgent need for green employment policies in:

1) Prevention—before disasters occur

2) Mitigation—transitioning to clean energy

3) Adaptation—waste recycling, and reusing of materials such as plastic.

This process of change at work will require the combined efforts of governments and of employers and workers through social dialogue. Day by day, workplace practices, skills, product design and job profiles are being adjusted. Most automobile manufacturers produce more fuel-efficient (or electric) cars; farmers apply more climate-resilient growing methods with organic fertilizers; enterprises use more energy-efficient techniques.

This new working dynamic makes a strong case for thinking in terms of processes to enable the greening of economies and production, rather than a dichotomy between unsustainable, dirty jobs being discontinued, and sustainable, clean ones being created.

Launched 40 years ago, the spacecraft have sailed beyond the solar system, artifacts of a civilization that may be gone before they’re found.

Stephane Bilodeau's insight:

"In October 2012, magnetic field and cosmic ray measurements indicated that Voyager 1 had reached the edge of the magnetic bubble that the sun extends like an umbrella over the planets, blocking outside radiation.

Voyager 1 was in interstellar space, the first human artifact to escape the solar system. It and its twin will go on circling the galaxy, long after it has ceased speaking to us. In the fullness of galactic time, the Voyagers may be found, but by then the human race may be long extinct.

The Voyager record might be the only physical remnant, the last lonely evidence that we, too, once lived in this city of stars, among these islands of ice and rock. Back then, we were looking forward to an exploration of space that would go on forever. It was magic, and we were all on the spaceship." Dennis Overbye

How can companies tackle these problems and take on the emerging responsibilities related to realizing a sustainable world?

The good news is that, in many organizations, there’s already someone poised to lead the charge: sustainability managers.

Traditionally, sustainability managers have focused on developing stakeholder and environmental strategies for companies, but they must now expand their influence to the fields of innovation and technology. Specifically, it is time for sustainability managers to step up and take on challenges in four critical areas:

While Hawaii pursues its commitment to reach 100 percent renewable energy in the electricity sector by 2045, the state is progressing on a parallel track to make better use of the energy it already has.

Improving energy efficiency is the most cost-effective way to move Hawaii forward before adding new generation capacity, according to experts, and will reduce dependence on fossil fuels in the state with the most expensive electricity costs in the United States.

"We know that we need to continue doing both: work on the reduction of energy consumption at the same time that we move forward with clean, sustainable energy systems," said David Ige, governor of Hawaii, during his opening remarks to the VERGE Hawaii conference in Honolulu. "That’s the best way to make the biggest impact on our environment."

Shaped like a panda bear when viewed from above, this is the first such installation the company, Panda Green Energy, has completed under its collaborative agreement with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). China Merchants New Energy Group (CMNE) signed an agreement with the UNDP last September to build panda-shaped PV projects, as part of efforts to raise awareness about sustainable development among young people in China.

The electricity generated by the array is expected to contribute to the reduction of roughly 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year.

C&I companies have played an increasing role in the demand for renewable energy, adding more than 8,000 GW of wind and solar power to the global grid since 2010. In Europe, 60 corporations have joined the U.K.-based RE100 and committed to source 100 percent of electricity from renewable resources. A further 150 European companies have agreed to set science-based targets for greenhouse gas emissions reduction, many of which will rely on renewable energy and other clean technologies to meet their goals.

“Even though there’s been a dramatic uptick in corporate adoption of clean, renewable energy, the complexity of today’s market can hinder many organizations,” said John Hoekstra, VP of Sustainability and Cleantech Services at Schneider Electric. “Technology, partners, financing and location are all variables that provide an endless array of opportunities, but can slow progress. The growing NEO Network community confirms the need for simplicity and clarity.”

While critical progress has been made across the Performance with Purpose 2025 Agenda goals, Dr. Mehmood Khan, PepsiCo’s Vice Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer for Global Research and Development, emphasized that coordinated action at scale is vital in addressing interrelated challenges in public health and nutrition, climate change, resource scarcity and human rights.

“Last year, we doubled down on Performance with Purpose, our vision to deliver top-tier financial results over the long term in a way that’s responsive to the needs of the world around us,” said PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Indra K. Nooyi. “Since then, we’ve been working hard to advance our 2025 Agenda, from making more nutritious products, to limiting our environmental footprint, to empowering people and the communities where we do business. As this year’s Report shows, we are making real, meaningful progress all over the world.”

Pope Francis has warned the recent spate of hurricanes should prompt people to understand that humanity will "go down" if it does not address climate change and history will judge those who deny the science on its causes.

Stephane Bilodeau's insight:

As Hurricane Irma was still ravaging the Florida coast on Monday as a tropical storm exacerbated by climate change, Pope Francis doubled down on his condemnations of those who choose to ignore the mounting evidence of the impacts of global warming. Responding to questions from an Italian journalist on board his flight home from Colombia, Francis said that the halting response to climate change reminded him of a “phrase from the Old Testament — man is a fool, a stubborn man who will not see”: an apparent reference to Proverbs 12, a section of the Bible that condemns those who resist correction in matters of knowledge. He also chastised politicians who doubt man-made climate change, saying they have a moral responsibility to act and branding those who do not as “stupid”.

Norway has the renewable resources and political will to become the world’s first country to use entirely clean electricity for its power demands, according to a new report by Energi Norge, a non-profit industry group representing Norwegian electricity companies.

Stephane Bilodeau's insight:

Norway’s electrification is set to benefit its closest EU neighbours, Denmark and Sweden, as the Nordic countries’ grids have long been connected.

The Norwegian grid will soon be connected to the United Kingdom and Germany too, as numerous interconnector projects are currently in different stages of development. NordLink, which would connect Norway and Germany via a 500km-long subsea cable, is due to come online in 2019, while the North Sea Link with the UK is slated to be completed in 2021. There are also plans to link up with Scotland, under the NorthConnect project.

It's often said that of all the published scientific research on climate change, 97% of the papers conclude that global warming is real, problematic for the planet, and has been exacerbated by human activity. But what about those 3% of papers that reach contrary conclusions? Some skeptics have suggested that the authors of studie

Stephane Bilodeau's insight:

According to a review published in the journal of Theoretical and Applied Climatology. The researchers tried to replicate the results of those 3% of papers that deny climate change—a common way to test scientific studies—and found biased, faulty results.

Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University, worked with a team of researchers to look at the 38 papers published in peer-reviewed journals in the last decade that denied anthropogenic global warming. “Every single one of those analyses had an error—in their assumptions, methodology, or analysis—that, when corrected, brought their results into line with the scientific consensus,” Hayhoe wrote.

It may be months, if ever, before a formal modeling study is conducted to quantify exactly how much global warming fueled the unprecedented rainfall that drove the historic floods in Houston.

However, we already know quite a lot about how climate change is currently driving trends in extreme precipitation and affecting tropical storms generally. By looking at the trends behind Harvey and examining the simple physics involved, a pretty clear picture emerges — and it is extremely disturbing. One preliminary expert estimate puts the contribution of global warming to the record rainfall at up to 30%.

Our weather is now profoundly different. Record-breaking rainfall is a classic signature of climate change. And global warming is now helping to fuel deluges around the world.

"A climate change attribution study on last-year’s tropical depression that delivered 1,000-year rains and drove historic floods in Louisiana found that climate change most likely doubled the odds for that event to occur.[

As the global average temperature increases, so too does the ability of the atmosphere to hold and dump more water when it rains.[10] Atmospheric water vapor has been increasing.[

The observed increases in water vapor and extreme precipitation have been studied and the fingerprint of global warming in these trends had been formally identified."

"Fossil fuels have two major problems that paint a dim picture for their future energy dominance. These problems are inter-related but still should be discussed separately.

First, they cause climate change. We know that, we’ve known it for decades, and we know that continued use of fossil fuels will cause enormous worldwide economic and social consequences.

Second, fossil fuels are expensive. Much of their costs are hidden, however, as subsidies. If people knew how large their subsidies were, there would be a backlash against them from so-called financial conservatives. A study was just published in the journal World Development that quantifies the amount of subsidies directed toward fossil fuels globally, and the results are shocking. The authors work at the IMF and are well-skilled to quantify the subsidies discussed in the paper."

This year seems to be a particularly bad fire season, with record breaking conflagrations stretching from the US to Europe to Russia.
Via SustainOurEarth

Stephane Bilodeau's insight:

The United States Forest Service is reporting that 2017 is shaping up to be a worse than average fire year based on acres of federal, private and state land burned. So far, 5.6 million acres of land has burned this year, or 1.8 million acres more than the ten year average of 3.8 million acres burned by this time. Some states like Nevada are saying that 2017 is the worst fire season in 15 years, while Montana has already used up much of its firefighting budget, even as much of the state remains in drought conditions according to the US Drought Monitor.

The first months of 2017 are the second hottest ever recorded. Read on.
Via SustainOurEarth

Stephane Bilodeau's insight:

"The year's warmth is just another piece of evidence supporting what climate scientists have said for over a decade. Put simply, the climate has lost its chill. Due to human behaviors—namely, releasing greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere—the climate is warming up, and that's leading to increasingly volatile weather."

The oil giant’s New Energies division launched last year with an annual investment budget of just $200 million.

Royal Dutch Shell is accelerating its move into alternative energy, with plans to spend up to $1 billion per year on its New Energies division by 2020, CEO Ben van Beurden said at conference in Istanbul on Monday.

The budget increase comes as success in the clean energy sector is raising questions about the long-term business model for fossil fuel majors. According to a recent report from Wood Mackenzie, renewables will be the fastest-growing primary energy source worldwide over the next 20 years, with average annual growth rates of 6 percent for wind and 11 percent for solar. Demand for oil, meanwhile, is forecast to grow just 0.5 percent per year.

British think tank Chatham House published a research paper last year that concluded oil majors must completely restructure their business model or face a “nasty, brutish and short” end within 10 years, due largely to low crude prices and tightening carbon regulations.

30 June, 2017 – Where can the climate refugees go, if 2 billion are driven away by rising tides, and the interior available becomes ever more inhospitable?

Stephane Bilodeau's insight:

“The colliding forces of human fertility, submerging coastal zones, residential retreat, and impediments to inland resettlement are a huge problem,” said Charles Geisler, professor emeritus of development sociology at Cornell University, in New York state.

“We offer preliminary estimates of the lands unlikely to support new waves of climate refugees due to the residues of war, exhausted natural resources, declining net primary productivity, desertification, urban sprawl, land concentration, ‘paving the planet’ with roads, and greenhouse gas storage zones offsetting permafrost melt.”

In any concerted attempts to contain climate change and limit global warming, climate scientists have to consider two big things. One is: how to drastically reduce fossil fuel use. The other is: how to use the land surface so that it takes up atmospheric carbon dioxide most efficiently.

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